For it says, “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.” What work? Of course your own. The conclusion is, that from the Sabbath-day He removes those works which He had before enjoined for the six days, that is, your own works; in other words, human works of dailylife. Now, the carrying around of the ark is evidently not an ordinary dailyduty, nor yet a human one; but a rare and a sacredwork, and, as being then ordered by the directprecept of God, a divine one. And I might fully explain what this signified, were it not a tedious process to open out the forms2960

2960 Figuras.

of all the Creator’s proofs, which you would, moreover, probably refuse to allow. It is more to the point, if you be confuted on plain matters2961

2961 De absolutis.

by the simplicity of truth rather than curious reasoning. Thus, in the present instance, there is a clear distinction respecting the Sabbath’s prohibition of human labours, not divine ones. Accordingly, the man who went and gathered sticks on the Sabbath-day was punished with death. For it was his own work which he did; and this2962

the law forbade. They, however, who on the Sabbath carried the arkroundJericho, did it with impunity. For it was not their own work, but God’s, which they executed, and that too, from His express commandment.

it restricts the prohibition to humanwork—which every one performs in his own employment or business—and not to divinework. Now the work of healing or preserving is not proper to man, but to God. So again, in the law it says, “Thou shalt not do any manner of work in it,”3878